…the government needs to use a lot more carrot and a lot less stick. A belief that you can force schools to improve leads directly to a culture where you demand that they do and punish if they don’t…Governments need to let go of the command and control model and replace it with a faith […]

The reason the tests plus inspections model has lasted 25 years despite constant criticisms of the kind you’re making is that no one has managed to suggest a viable alternative. No Government of any political stripe is going to do anything other than tinker with the current model unless something concrete, implementable and politically viable […]

My point..is the highly detrimental effect the high accountability and data-driven regime is having on schools and on education…I’d like to look at a process that I think is particularly damaging. The process comes from the constant need for schools to show ‘progress’ and for pupils to take a childhood-ignoring upward path to ever greater […]

As I suspected you do see the fairly obvious benefits of publishing and collecting data. Your real concern – shared by plenty of others – is how the data is used by Government for the purposes of accountability…But the right question isn’t “does accountability have any negative effects” but “do the positive effects of accountability […]